Iran: The Test of Wills

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still packed with automobiles, however, and Tehran still has the worst smog east of Los Angeles. The privileged few, if there are any left, can buy vodka for $20 a bottle and on Fridays can place their wagers at the Farahabad race track. But the citizenry in general are visibly angry. Last week unemployed workers seized the Labor Ministry and held it for 24 hours. "They're bitter," said a ministry official afterward. "And they'll be back."

One thing that should sustain Jimmy Carter during his current ordeal is the knowledge that, for the first time in his presidency, and indeed within recent memory, the U.S. enjoyed at least modest support from practically the entire world. Two weeks ago, members of the U.N. Security Council had voted unanimously to express their "profound concern" over Iran's detention of American diplomats, and last week the Council rejected a request by Iran to turn the matter into a sort of star-chamber proceeding on the fate of the deposed Shah. Even the Soviet leadership, perhaps because it remembers so clearly the attack on its embassy in Peking during the Cultural Revolution, was providing a degree of backing. After a State Department complaint about Soviet anti-American broadcasts being beamed to Iran, the Soviets curtailed them, and Tass referred, a bit obliquely, to "the true position of the Soviet Union with regard to. . .observing the norms and principles of international law." In the most pointed comment of all, the Soviet Ambassador to the U.S., Anatoli Dobrynin, told Secretary Vance: "Where hostages are concerned, politics should stop."

In the Middle East, only Libyan Strongman Muammar Gaddafi came out in support of Iran in the present controversy. At last week's Arab summit meeting in Tunis, Libya further proposed that the other Arab oil producers join in imposing sanctions against the U.S.; the idea was unanimously rejected. Even the Palestine Liberation Organization, though it has close ties to the Iranian leadership, made an effort to act as a mediator, an initiative that ended in failure last week. (Another would-be negotiator, Carter's Special Emissary Ramsey Clark, the former U.S. Attorney General, gave up after Khomeini announced he would not see the President's representative.)

Carter's strongest support in the region came from Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who had also offered refuge to the Shah two weeks ago. By his invitation, Middle East experts believe, Sadat was telling the Saudis that he remains responsive to their fears about the rise of radicalism. He was also reminding them that he does not snub old friends when they need help. Sadat feels that the Sunni Muslims need a defender against Iran's assertive Shi'ites, and he would like to fill the role himself. The Saudis quickly assured Sadat through third parties that they will continue to ship their oil through the Suez Canal and will not withdraw the $2 billion that they and the Kuwaitis have on deposit in the Central Bank of Egypt. Sadat spoke for most of the moderate Arabs when he observed at week's end: "The situation in Iran is deteriorating badly and presents an extremely grave threat to the Arab gulf states."

Though the Western European nations were all favoring Carter in the current crisis—the London Daily Telegraph even denounced Khomeini as